"Alligator Alcatraz" Forced to Close After
Less than a Year

Weekly vigils have taken place since 2025 to demand the closure of "Alligator Alcatraz" and the release of detainees. Shown here, the May 31, 2026 vigil. With the closure of the concentration camp, the last vigil was held on June 21, 2026.

On June 17, the concentration camp that opened July 3, 2025, in the Florida Everglades -- callously dubbed by the Trump administration as "Alligator Alcatraz" -- has been forced to close by persistent resistance. Despite just demands for their freedom, the many people detained have instead been moved to other facilities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Families and lawyers are often left without knowing where people have been sent and some are disappeared for weeks. In addition to detention, the air strip at the tent camp has been used to illegally deport 22,000 people.

"Alligator Alcatraz" was vigorously opposed from the start and weekly vigils have been held, bringing people from across Florida and surrounding states to protest at the site and demand it be closed. The Miccosukee Tribe often led the resistance, alongside environmentalists and worker and immigrant rights organizations. Together they also still have a lawsuit pending to ensure the permanent closure of the camp. The Miccosukee bring out that they were not consulted and the camp desecrated sacred lands and ignored tribal sovereignty from the beginning. 

The Miccosukee have protected these lands for generations. The Miccosukee refused to accept the concentration camp. As Native News Online writes, "For the Miccosukee people and their allies, the fight over 'Alligator Alcatraz' was never only about a detention centre. It was about defending the Everglades, protecting sacred homelands, and forcing governments to recognize that Indigenous voices cannot continue to be ignored." Everyone together stood up for the rights of the people detained and succeeded in getting the camp closed.

People in Florida are also angry that the state has spent more than $1 million per day operating this inhumane tent city, with overall costs estimated at $1 billion, yet the right to housing for all, a serious problem, is not being met.

As part of their vengeance, ICE has made sure that many family members and lawyers are not being informed about the transfers being made. Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney at Sanctuary of the South, said all 50 clients that she and other attorneys have been providing with free advice during the past 20 days have been moved from "Alligator Alcatraz" to other facilities in South Florida, California, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas. "They are all gone," Blankenship said. "They have been moved and disappeared into the system and are unavailable to family or counsel, typically for a period of about a week." She was not notified but only found out because her clients did not appear at hearings or did not show up at calls. She had to locate them herself. For families without lawyers finding their loved ones is even more difficult.

Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, points out that even if the facility is closed, the harm will not end. "Many of the people detained there will be transferred to other detention facilities, while their families continue to face uncertainty and hardship,'' Bozzetto said. "When this detention camp closes, many corporations and contractors will have walked away with millions in profits, while immigrant families are left to pick up the pieces."

On June 17, the Center for Biological Diversity issued a press release that stated, "Environmental groups will advance their legal case against 'Alligator Alcatraz' amid news that the federal government has moved all detainees out of the mass detention centre in the heart of the Everglades. [...] Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, which originally sued the Trump and DeSantis administrations in June 2025, affirmed their commitment to return to the trial court this month to stop the harm and force full remediation of the damage."

"We will not rest until the government is held accountable for violating the law and the public trust," said Tania Galloni, managing attorney for Earthjustice's Florida regional office. "It is great that detainees have been removed from this devastating facility. But the risks to people and the environment remain. Now we must make sure nothing like this happens again."

Vigil, May 31, 2026

(With files from Associated Press, Center for Biological Diversity, Native News Online)

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This article was published in

Volume 56 Number 5 - July 4, 2026

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/TML2026/Articles/TS56057.HTM

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